8 
Bulletin 35 
156 
Page 26S 
on the shores of the Gulf of Paria ; but the same formation ha"^ 
been found at Ciimana and other places in Ven ezrela 011 the 
continent of South America. The few fossils found in Trinidad 
and in the same formation at Cumana have led to the belief that 
the Older Parian was probably of Xeocomian age. 
During a .short visit to Pointe a Pierre, I obtained several fossils 
from the Older Parian rocks, and these fo.ssils are the subject of the 
present communication. 
The extreme point of the cliff at Pointe a Pierre in the Gulf 
of Paria is formed of a hard ferruginous sandstone, which is 
.somewhat brittle and coarse in its structure, and contains no fossils. 
The dip from 40° to 45° S. 
The most conspicuous among the organic remains is a Trigonia 
cou-sidered b\’ Mr. Ethridge to be the same species as that fonnd 
at Bogota, and named b}^ D’Orbignj- Trigonia subcrcnulata^. Of 
this fossil I found one entire specimen and several disunited valves. 
I^Ir. Etheridge notices the entire absence of Cephalopoda in 
the collections made b}' the geologists when here, stating that 
the want of such fossils prevented a comparison with the strata 
at Bogota and other parts of South America.! I have obtained 
a specimen oiBelemnites from Point a Pierre, so verj* imperfect and 
worn, however, that it is difficult to ascertain to what section of 
the genus of Cephalopoda it belongs. If, however, it belongs, as 
.seems probable, to the sub-section Acnariioi Bronn’s section Aarli, 
it furnishes additional evidence of the correctnessof Mr. Etheridge’s 
determination of the age of the strata exhibited at Pointe a Pierre 
as Neocomian. The presence of the Belemnite is at once a proof 
of the IMesozoic age of the older Parian group ; and, as the genus 
is not found above the Gault, we must consider the Pointe a Pierre 
deposits as older than the true Chalk. 
Numerous fragments of an Oyster, somewhat like Ostrea carinata 
of the Lower Greensand, are found with the Trigonia. At the same 
locality I have found Oysters referable perhaps to two other species. 
One of these is somewhat like the recent Ostrea edulis, and in one of 
my specimens the markings of the hinge-cartilage are well shown. 
* Geological Survey of Trinidad, p. 163. 
t Ibid. , and Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xvi, p. 465. 
